Part 17

Simple survival does not seem enough for some comfortably situated critics in this country sheltered by British resistance, but that is only because it is so difficult for those who have not experienced the near threat of death to understand what life means. Mr. Churchill expressed the irritation at such questions that must seize anyone who has witnessed the effect of Hitler’s terrible force when in a discussion of Poland he exclaimed: “What a frightful fate has overtaken Poland! Here was a community of nearly thirty-five millions of people with all the organization of a modern government and all the traditions of an ancient state, which in a few weeks was dashed out of civilized existence to become an incoherent multitude of tortured and starving men, women and children, ground beneath the heel of two rival forms of withering and blasting tyranny. Although the fate of Poland stares them in the face, there are thoughtless dilettanti or purblind worldlings who sometimes ask us: ‘What is it that Britain is fighting for?’ To this I answer, ‘If we left off fighting you would soon find out.’”

Q. _I understand that, but after victory, what? That won’t be the end of the world; after we win we shall have a lot to do. What was the meaning of the Churchill-Roosevelt meeting and their eight-point declaration?_

A. The meeting and its published result, which Churchill calls the Atlantic Charter, made an interesting commentary and answer to the demand for a statement of war aims. Its first importance lay in the fact of the meeting of the two men; its second importance lay in the confidential discussion of ways and means of beating Hitler; its third importance was a statement of war aims. I have not been able to understand why the statement was labeled in this country as an American statement, as though the President had imposed it upon the Prime Minister, or as though the principal ideas contained in it were characterized more by American unselfishness than by British hardheadedness. It may very well be that Churchill was reluctant to make any statement of war aims at all, but now that it has been made it seems to me to be hardheaded, and frankly Churchillian and not at all the sort of statement that American liberals had been discussing.

Q. _Why not; is there anything not liberal in the statement?_

A. Not to my way of thinking, but the average liberal argued there should be a statement of war aims in order first of all to impress the good German people that we are kindly disposed toward them and if they knew how well we intended to treat them after they were defeated they would give up now. What is the sense of the Atlantic Charter? Its chief meaning is that the main war aim and peace aim is to make the world safe against Germany. It names two ways of accomplishing this aim: A. By destruction of the Nazi power and disarmament of Germany and her allies. B. By restoration of the nations now enslaved. Does this constitute an encouragement for the Germans to give up? Hardly. Churchill and Roosevelt were too clear-sighted and too candid to fall in with the argument that the German people could be fooled by a dishonest statement of war aims. They knew that the Germans are bound to realize if they lose this war they will be worse off than if they win. War is Hell, but much more hellish for the defeated side. It is untrue that war never settles anything. It always settles something, whether for a short time, as for the twenty years following the uncompleted war of 1914-1918, or forever as the Third Punic War. The Germans know this better than almost any other people. But now they have had a crushingly frank statement of basic British-American war aims: abolition of German military power. This time they cannot complain they have been deceived.

Q. _Wasn’t that true of Wilson’s Fourteen Points? Weren’t they a frank statement to the Germans of the terms they could expect if they surrendered?_

A. No. In the first place, one great difference between Wilson’s Fourteen Points and the Eight Points of the Atlantic Charter is that Wilson acted alone, and issued his Fourteen Points to the world in January 1918, without consulting Britain or France, so that when the Germans in October finally in the extremity of defeat accepted them, Britain and France were not bound by them at all. In the second place, the Fourteen Points declared there should be general disarmament, and not just a one-sided German disarmament, so that when as a matter of common prudence, the British and French insisted upon and obtained German disarmament ahead of their own, the Germans protested they had been betrayed by Wilson particularly and by the Allies in general. Hitler based his campaign for power in Germany largely upon his complaint that Germany had never been fairly beaten on the battlefield, but had been betrayed by the Fourteen Points. Now it is hard to see how any future Hitler can raise again such a complaint since the Germans are now given fair warning that when they are beaten their present government will be abolished, and their arms will be taken from them while the British and Americans keep their arms intact. This is a refreshing example of common-sense honesty. It seems almost as though Churchill’s and Roosevelt’s clear-sighted candor might finally brush away the mists of false feeling and thinking which have obscured our view of the war and of our own interests.

Q. _You have named what might be called a negative side of the Atlantic Charter as being its most important side._

A. It is, if you call it negative to aim to destroy the power which has torn the whole world apart.

Q. _Yes, but after that power is destroyed, or rendered impotent, what are we or the British going to do to consolidate the gains of victory? How are we going to be better off?_

A. If you think we are going to be better off, or could be better off than we were before 1939, the answer is that we cannot be because no matter which side wins the world as a whole is going to be very much worse off for a long time than it was before the war began. We are not offered the choice now of fighting in order to improve our present position. Our choice is, either to fight and save something of our most precious spiritual as well as material possessions; or not to fight and lose everything. The world as a whole is bound to be materially much poorer after this war no matter who is victor, although the United States ought to come out of it in better condition than any other country. Think of the immense demolition which has been wrought and is now being wrought in Europe. Just to name a few of the cities which have been bombarded and have suffered varying degrees of damage is to compile a roll of casualties never equaled: London, Manchester, Liverpool, Portsmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, Coventry; Berlin, Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne, Duisburg, Essen, Dortmund; Warsaw; Belgrade; Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk, Smolensk, Odessa, Kiev; Alexandria; Nanking, Hankow, Chungking. From China to Egypt and from England to Central Russia, fire and high explosives have blasted scars it will take a century to heal.

The diversion of billions of man-hours from productive work to the making of war supplies, the loss of lives, and the dislocation of millions of human existences, and of the whole world economy, will impoverish us all for a certain length of time. Happily there are reasons for believing the United States will suffer less than almost any other part of the human family, provided only that we enter the war soon enough to ensure the defeat of the Nazi power and do not wait to face that power alone. We must keep one thing firmly in mind, that though our condition may be poor if we are victorious, it will be definitely better than if we are defeated, and though we may lack in goods and comforts as a result of our participation in the war, we shall be far richer and easier in body, mind, and soul after hard-won victory than if we attempted to purchase from the conquering Nazis a humiliating security.

Q. _Why should the United States, as you suggested, come out of the war in a better economic condition than the others?_

A. First, because if we enter the war in time to have any Allies, we shall probably be physically undamaged. That is, as long as the British Isles, our foremost fortress, persists in its resistance it is not likely that we shall suffer any important injuries by air bombardment or otherwise. You can see how important this factor is if you consider the condition of the cities of England now, and how much money, labor, and time it will take to restore them. Second, the economic structure of the United States can more easily be transferred back from war to peace production than most countries. After this war there will be an increase in the private use of airplanes comparable to the increase in automobile ownership after the first successful Ford. Our warplane production can be easily switched to the production of private planes, and many observers would not be surprised to see American private plane production go into six figures and then into seven.

The United States, as the most self-contained of the belligerent powers, at the end of the war will have everything necessary to resume its own economic progress and to help the world recover.

Europe will be starving and desperately in need of our agricultural products, our cotton, and of almost everything else we produce. If we wish decisively to influence the organization of the world, one powerful lever will be our economic power after the war, our ability if we like, to finance the reconstruction of Europe. With wisdom and far-sight in control of our administration we ought to be able to put back into circulation some of our monstrous hoard of gold, for our own good as well as that of the world. Sometimes when one succumbs to optimism, it seems possible that there may come after this war a marvelous opportunity to reshape the affairs of mankind into a happier pattern. We shall have an opportunity such as we have never had before, not even after the last war, to make our hopes and aspirations practically effective, but only of course if we enter the war in time. There is a fourth reason why we should be economically or financially better off at the end of this war than at the end of the last one: we now have no war-debt problem. Who will deny now that everyone would have been better off after the last war if international debts, including reparations, had been canceled all around. This aspect of the Lend-Lease program may go down in history as Roosevelt’s cleverest device.

This sounds almost as though I thought the war would be a blessing to America, emerging undamaged, easily reverting to peacetime production, stored with goods for our own consumption and for export to clamoring millions abroad, and with no delinquent war debtors to confuse our financial affairs. Actually I do not think the war will be a blessing, except as it unifies us and does something to cleanse us of the scum of materialism. This view of America’s chances of coming relatively unscathed out of the war depends entirely upon comparison of our fate with that of other countries, maimed by bombardment, mutilated by the loss of millions of breadwinners, fiscally bankrupt, economically paralyzed, politically divided, and in the case of some, the prey of anarchy. Think what the problem of leadership will be in most of the countries of Europe. In Germany and Italy the tyrants have long ago executed, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise effectively removed from the political scene every possible candidate for office not in agreement with them. In France the demoralization caused by defeat and Vichy’s collaboration with the enemy has left few men with the initiative and courage to become leaders of a renascent republic. If, as so frequently happens, we become inclined to take an over-cheerful view of ourselves and our prospects, we ought to be sobered by the thought of our responsibilities in the postwar world. Whether we like it or not, and our isolationists to the contrary notwithstanding, the United States after this war is going to be compelled to assume the leadership of the Western World, not only economically but politically. But we shall be able effectively to influence the peace only if we have effectively taken part in the war.

Q. _What will the peace conference be like?_

A. It might be more instructive in the first place to discuss what the peace will be like if Hitler wins. Of course there will not be any peace _conference_ if Hitler wins. The Quislings and Darlans will be called to function for the states of Europe in the same way as Hitler’s rubber-stamp Reichstag functions for Germany. We know now what Hitler plans to impose upon the world. Let us begin with Europe. Europe is to belong exclusively to the Germans. They as a master race will occupy the top of a pyramid at the bottom of which are the Poles, Czechs, Serbs, and other “subhuman Slavs” who constitute the lowest class of slaves. Between these “untouchables” and the Germans will come all the other peoples of Europe, arranged in order depending partially upon their degree of racial kinship with the noble Teutons, but more on the degree of their subservience and “collaboration.” The Dutch and Scandinavians, for example, are considered by the Nazis to be semi-Teutonic cousins, but they will not be ranked as high as the French if the Vichy appeasers succeed in their policy of “collaboration.”

Now that Italy has proved an even feebler war partner than her worst detractors had imagined, Hitler obviously is considering the grant to France of the position of First Vassal instead of Italy. Spain, if she eventually enters the war, will be given a role perhaps second to that of Italy, chiefly because Spanish influence will be helpful in the conquest of South America. Sweden and Switzerland will of course be _gleichgeschaltet_, or “coordinated” into the Nazi system and given a rank corresponding to their servility. But all are slaves, including the Axis “allies” Italy, Hungary, Spain, and they differ one from another only in the degree of their degradation. None of them will be permitted to bear arms capable of threatening their Nazi masters, and none will have a word in the formulation of the major laws which determine their lives.

Q. _In what sense will the conquered people be slaves?_

A. Politically, they will be disfranchised, without a vote, unable to influence their own fate except by humble petition to Berlin. For the most part they will be ruled by Nazi governors. States like Poland will also have Nazis ruling the smallest organs of government, as municipalities. States like France may be permitted to operate their own provincial and municipal governments under a Nazi _Gauleiter fuer Frankreich_.

Q. _But Germans also have no vote under the Nazi system. How does the position of these other nationalities under the Nazis differ from that of the Germans themselves?_

A. It differs as the night from day. Every ruling made and every action taken by the Nazi governors of the vassal states is intended to procure tribute for the Great German Reich, tribute which, scientifically extracted, will prove greater over the years than any amount of old-fashioned looting could have produced. This tribute, which is to be paid not merely for generations to come, but as Hitler modestly estimates, for 1,000 years, will go to elevate the standard of living of all Germans, and to depress the standard of living of all non-Germans. It makes no difference that most Germans have no voice in their government; every German will be under Hitler’s New Order, a slaveholder, and every non-German inhabitant of occupied territory is automatically a slave of the whole German tribe.

Q. _How is this to be accomplished? Isn’t it difficult to extract tribute? Didn’t the Allies have trouble getting reparations from Germany?_

A. The Allies were innocent children compared with the Nazis in the art of obtaining advantage from one’s beaten adversary. No one knows whether Hitler’s system will work for 1,000 years, or for ten or two years, but it certainly is a grandiose design without any parallel in the history of human conquest. First is the movement of populations. Hitler has moved upward of two million Poles from Western Poland, dumped them indiscriminately in Central Poland, and replaced them with Germans, some from the Baltic states, some from the Tyrol, some from the Reich. The Poles as a rule were visited by the Gestapo after midnight, given half an hour’s notice to leave their homes forever, allowed to take but a single suitcase with food for three days and the clothes on their backs. They were forbidden to take any of their own articles of value, not even a silver spoon from the kitchen or a rake from the barn. The German families moving in were fewer than the evacuated Poles, so that the Germans became wealthier per capita than the Poles had been. The Poles died for the most part, or else are still in process of dying from starvation and exposure; it was part of the German calculation that they should die. Similar methods were used to evacuate the French from Lorraine.

Other desirable parts of Europe contiguous to the Great German Reich will be evacuated of their native populations and settled by the Germans. This constitutes looting on a grand scale. Sir Norman Angell, profound thinker on war, once held in his Nobel prize-winning thesis “The Great Illusion,” that modern conquest cannot pay in this Christian day and age, because the acquisition of mere political control over an enemy’s territory, the advancing of the flag over foreign lands, does not pay even for the cost of the war. The usual incidental looting by the soldiery amounts of course to nothing from the point of view of the nation’s economics. Sir Norman could not be blamed for failing to foresee the grand-scale looting practiced by the Nazis. There is an evident economic advantage to the nation if a million of its farm families are moved into rich, fully equipped farms robbed from the conquered and expelled enemy. But this sort of looting is only the beginning of Nazi total plunder. In France the major part of the productive apparatus in industry, trade, and the professions is being systematically taken over by the Nazis. This is only a step toward the huge permanent system of eternal tribute, which is based upon the exploitation of the labor power of Europe.

No conqueror since the Romans has ever been able profitably to exploit the labor power of his conquests, but the Nazis propose to do so and are doing so and boast they will continue to do so for centuries. The Nazis intend to concentrate all industry in Germany, and to convert the rest of Europe into an agricultural colony growing food and raw materials for the master state, the Great German Reich. The entire population of non-German Europe is to be turned and is already being turned as fast as possible into a vast army of coolies of the soil, toiling to supply the Third Reich. The coolies will likewise be required to buy all their industrial products from Germany. The price the Germans pay for the coolies’ agricultural products and the price the coolies pay for the German goods will be fixed by the Germans. Nice calculation will arrive at the precise prices which will bring the Herrenvolk the maximum advantage. The Germans with their traditional scientific acumen will certainly find it to their advantage to pay their coolies such prices for agricultural products as will enable the coolies to buy liberally of German manufactured goods.

Thus with a little reasonableness and spirit of accommodation on the side of the coolies, who ought to be happy to give up the responsibility of liberty, and glad to dispense with the obligations connected with free speech, press, assembly, and thought, Hitler Europe might settle down into one great unhappy family, orderly as a penitentiary, quiet as a grave. It is important also to note that by turning their conquered populations into farm hands the Nazis make it much easier to keep their victims permanently disarmed, since only industry on a large scale can turn out tanks, machine guns, and warplanes necessary for insurrection against a totalitarian tyranny.

Q. _But Hitler has not destroyed or removed the factories from France and not even from Poland, since we constantly read that he is obtaining considerable war supplies from the industrial plants in the occupied regions._

A. That is because the war is not over yet and Hitler has not had time to move these factories into Germany. He needs their products immediately for the war against England and Russia. After his conquest of Poland he kept many Polish factories, notably locomotive and freight-car plants, running in Poland with German supervisors, but after the fall of France, during that period when he was sure England would capitulate also, he ordered these factories transferred to Germany. Then after the British failed to surrender and as soon as it became plain that the war would last some time longer, Hitler countermanded the transfer of the Polish factories, and many of them are running today on Polish soil.

Q. _Where is Hitler going to get the man power to run such a huge industrial machine, comprising the manufactories formerly owned in all the rest of Europe?_

A. That is a question which closely concerns us all in America. Hitler will get the man power in part from his own partially demobilized armies, but in part also from the conquered coolies, millions of whom are not agricultural workers at all, but skilled mechanics and technicians. German authorities admit, or boast, that today 2,000,000 prisoners of war and “others” are working in German factories, mines, and on farms. It is against the products of this essentially slave labor that American industrial products would have to compete if Hitler after conquering Britain offered merely to compete with the United States in foreign trade.

Q. _Would we not then be at a great disadvantage? How could we compete at all?_

A. We could not compete successfully. Under the Nazi system, precisely as under its twin brother, the Soviet system, all foreign trade is carried on by a foreign trade monopoly. It has a hundred different names in Germany but in reality every foreign trade transaction is a government transaction. Competition among Germans is thus eliminated and any foreigner attempting to compete with the Nazi Colossus has as much chance to succeed as a one-well oil producer trying to trade against the Standard Oil Company. No American manufacturer, no matter how big, including our automobile manufacturers, could buck the Nazi machine, because in addition to its slave labor prices, and its government foreign trade monopoly, it would have the advantage of terrific political-military pressure on all the states in the world not yet an integral part of the Nazi Empire. What South American state do you think would have the nerve to stand up to a Germany which had just finished off the whole of Europe and the British Empire? Which one of them would refuse to give Nazi goods favored tariff treatment over American goods notwithstanding any existing treaties?

Q. _If these are Hitler’s plans for Europe, what does he intend to do with Africa, Asia, and America if he wins?_